ABSTRACT
By some First Nations accounts, there is a Great Council of All Animals which meets in perpetual session in a cave deep within a mountain, beside a great river.1 These animals monitor the affairs of humans wherever they are on earth. If a woman or man is in need or in trouble, and humbly asks for assistance, the Council chooses one of its members to help. The representative, whether winged, four-legged, or crawling, then appears to the person and gives something of its own power or advice that should thereafter guide the person’s life. It is understood that animals were here before human beings and thus have a recognized superiority over them.
